The Farmer's Daughter

by Jim Harrison

  Berry began to cry again when the Director led her back toward the hospital. B.D. wasn’t feeling well having had one too many with Turnip and his anger over Berry’s trials exacerbated his discomfort. He had stayed two nights in a sleazy motel because he hadn’t wanted to stay at the Director’s because she wouldn’t allow alcohol in her home and Turnip’s condo made him too nervous. Turnip had had some young lady neighbors in for drinks in the late afternoon when they got home from work. They were dressed slick and neat and were professional women working in real estate and one was a teacher “looking for something better.” The problem was that B.D. couldn’t get a fix on what they were talking about and Turnip had put on loud rock-and-roll music. They fawned over Turnip but let their eyes pass quickly over B.D. They were technically real pretty but he didn’t feel a true-to-life nut itch over a single one of them. When they entered a tall one name Deedee had approached him.

  “What do you do?”

  “Cut logs. A little carpentry when I can find it.”

  “You Indians are so devil-may-care,” she giggled chugging her Budweiser.

  “I’m not a real Indian like Turnip. I’m just a mixed breed like most dogs.” He was tempted to tell he was a wanted man on the run but she had quickly turned away.

  Turnip had made them a batch of margaritas and winked at B.D. when he poured most of a bottle of tequila into the shaker. “I’m sending these bitches to the moon pronto. We’re in for some C-minus fun,” he whispered.

  B.D. took a couple of gulps of tequila and then when the rest of them went out to see someone’s new leased car he slipped out the back door and headed for the scrungiest side of town where he had a fry bread taco covered with hot sauce. After dinner he bought a pint of McGillicuddy’s schnapps to settle his stomach, then headed back to his motel room where there was a big photo of Mount Rushmore. He tried to imagine Charles Eats Horses pouring a gallon of blood-red paint down along George Washington’s nose. Every movie on cable TV seemed to involve people shooting each other and he wasn’t up to being a witness to malice of any sort. Finally on the National Geo channel he found a documentary on Siberia which seemed a totally wonderful place, the kind of country he’d learn to love in three minutes flat. He sipped out of the 100 proof bottle disliking plastic glasses because years ago one had sprung a leak and left a last drink on his wet lap. There was an improbable surge of homesickness and he made do by reliving a long trek west of Germfask in search of a rumored beaver pond which was actually in a federal wildlife area where it was illegal to fish, the smallest of considerations because on the sparse two-tracks you could hear the rare federal vehicle a half mile away and merely step into the brush. At the beaver pond he hooked what he thought would be the largest brook trout of his life but after a prolonged struggle the fish turned out to be a pike of a half dozen pounds. He would have preferred it to be a brook trout but gracefully accepted its pikedom. It was June and pike are quite tasty from the cool waters of the early season. By the time he got back to the car it was nearly dark, after ten this far north in June. He drove over to near Au Train where an old Indian lady he knew lived far back in the woods in a tar-paper cabin. His grandpa and this woman were sweet on each other and when he was a boy he’d fish a nearby creek while the two had their monthly assignation. When he arrived just before midnight with the pike her cabin was dark and it scared the shit out of him when he heard a growl from a nearby thicket. She was playing a joke on him after she had been out night walking. She cooked up the pike and they ate it with bread, salt, and some elderberry wine she had made the autumn before. She sang along with the country station from Ishpeming and was particularly good at duets with George Jones and Merle Haggard.

  The reverie put him in a fine mood though the Siberian program segued to heart surgery on a zoo elephant and he turned off the television not wanting to know if this elephant failed to make it through the operation. The heart was red and huge and its beating was tentative. B.D. recalled that once when Grandpa was telling his World War II stories there was one about a whale seen in the North Pacific that had a heart big enough for a man to sleep in.

  He managed his second long day of vigil fairly well. The Weather Channel predicted a storm by evening but the day had a warm breeze from the south. The hardest part was when the Director and Berry came out and Berry closed down and became stonelike. Due to some blood test she wasn’t even allowed to eat the Big Mac with extra onions he had bought her. Berry’s only sign of life was to point straight up at the tiny specks of hawks making their spring migration.

  “She’s not looking too good for a normal life,” the Director said.

  “I already knew that,” B.D. said, his gorge rising.

  “So did I but they have to figure out what’s possible. She won’t ever be able to talk but she’s physically coordinated, strong, and agile.”

  “I already knew that.” The anger was a knot in B.D.’s throat so that he couldn’t swallow.

  “These are specialists in this infirmity, B.D., so you’ll have to be patient. We’ll be finished by three and then I’m going to take Berry out north of Sturgis toward Bear Butte to see some baby buffalo. You got a big surprise coming about that time.”

  A doctor walked by and Berry shoved her head into B.D.’s jacket. He patted her back and her muscles were tight as a drum.

  “I don’t want no surprise. I want to head home with my daughter.”

  “You can’t. We’re already processing with the state of Michigan for the change of guardianship. Her mother has consented. Eventually the state of Michigan will withdraw the charges against you. Her mother got another five years for biting off a guard’s ear. You know this is best. What would you do when she got pregnant at age twelve by whomever?”

  “Likely kill whomever.”

  “Then she would have no one. She’s going to live with my cousin’s family north of here. They got cows, horses, and dogs and she’ll go to this special school part-time.”

  B.D. began to cry for the first time he could remember. The Director hugged him and dabbed his tears with a good-smelling handkerchief and Berry came alive enough to hold his hand. They left and he quickly finished the bottle of schnapps, reached into his pocket, and rolled a cigarette and lit it. Suddenly the security guard was in front of him.

  “I’m going to have to call the police, I warned you.”

  “It would be the last number you ever dialed,” B.D. said levelly.

  “How come you’re crying?” The security man shrugged, not wanting to get his ass kicked.

  “They’re taking my daughter away from me,” B.D. said.

  “That’s an awful thing to have happen,” the guard said and walked away.

  B.D. saw a black dog out in the parking lot. He whistled and the dog trotted over with its long rabbit ears and ungainly body what with its front rather slender compared to its big back end. B.D. unwrapped Berry’s Big Mac and was amazed when the dog ate the burger in polite bites rather than gulps. The brass collar said that her name was Ethyl, a fine match he thought between name and this peculiar beast. Here Ethyl was out on a stroll and lucked into a burger. The basis of a friendship having been made Ethyl hopped up onto the bench, circled a few times, and nestled in for a snooze. From her somewhat distended teats it was apparent that Ethyl was a mother and B.D. mentally bet that she was good at it as he stroked her long floppy ears. Turnip had said that the Director had raised five kids, the last being a member of the Thunderskins. How could I know how to be a mother when I didn’t even have one myself, he thought. He knew he was better than Berry’s criminal mother Rose but that might be like comparing cat and dog turds. He leaned forward trying to prop his elbows on his knees for a little snooze. There was a chance of falling on his face if he fell asleep but that might be fun compared to the rest of what had been happening. He was not under the illusion that most of us are that he was in control, that he was in the driver’s seat, as they say. And a wide streak of the dour Lutheran ethos of the Great North said
that it is always darkest before it gets even darker. His last hope was to get home and have a life that the ancient Confucians thought was the best life, one in which nothing much happened.

  He did doze and he did fall over but only scraped one palm on the cement. The Director and Berry came back out for a few minutes and Berry was a tad cheerier, especially with Ethyl to pet.

  “Your surprise is getting closer. I just gave directions,” the Director said grabbing Berry’s hand and walking swiftly back toward the hospital. Ethyl tried to follow but there was a shrill whistle from a block away out beyond the parking lot. Ethyl took off toward the whistle and B.D. had the maudlin thought, Now I’ve lost my dog, but then he saw something that made his heart jump. Out in the parking lot a woman looking like Gretchen got out of a car that looked like Gretchen’s. Unable to believe this B.D. swiveled around until he was looking back toward the hospital. His skin prickled.

  “B.D., it’s me,” she called out. “I’m here to drive you home.”

  It was as if the sun had risen in the middle of a stormy night. He didn’t dare turn around and then a kind of paralysis seeped into his system. She sat down beside him and took his limp hand.

  “I know it’s been a hard time for you.”

  “You could say that.”

  “Everything is for the best. We’ve got to haul ass. It’s Friday afternoon and I have to be to work Monday.”

  They all had a good-bye lunch at a plastic picnic table outside a McDonald’s. Gretchen and the Director sipped sodas and ate granola bars while shuffling papers. B.D. and Berry ate with Berry sitting on his lap. She was fairly happy having perceived that she didn’t have to go back to the hospital. B.D. and Gretchen were quite overcome and plans were discussed to come back to South Dakota around the Fourth of July for a visit.

  Gretchen drove B.D. to the sleazy motel to pick up his bag and he had this idea that they should rest up because he had already paid for that day and night.

  “Just get your bag, you nitwit,” she laughed. She was wearing a blue summer skirt that thrilled him to the core.

  Part III

  “I was hoping to take a look at this Corn Palace.” B.D. had been dozing but it seemed like every time he opened his eyes there was a billboard for the Corn Palace, a building constructed out of ears of corn. Since he had worked often as a carpenter he couldn’t imagine corn as a building material. It was probably like cheap brick facing. “Why would they put up a building made of corn?”

  “So that geeks like you will stop in Mitchell, South Dakota, and spend money. The weather is shit anyway and I’m tired and hungry.”

  It was sleeting and the thermometer in her Honda Accord had dropped to freezing from forty in the last hour. She steered downtown encircling the Corn Palace which indeed was made of full corncobs though they were the only tourists and downtown was pretty much closed. Gretchen chose a higher-end motel back out by the interstate because there was a restaurant attached and she didn’t want to drive any farther.

  “We’ve been talking all afternoon but I can’t stop thinking about intrauterine pollution.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Chemicals from the environment get into the womb and affect the baby’s teeth. I live too close to that stinking paper mill.”

  While she checked them into the motel B.D. reflected on her endless monologue on possibly having a baby. Since he was to be the sperm donor he first had to have a physical checkup to make sure he wasn’t diseased.

  “I’m thirty-three. I have to come to a decision,” she had said.

  “That’s the age Jesus was when he died,” B.D. had said lamely.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing. I’m confused about being a sperm donor.”

  “It’s easy. I don’t want to do it in a doctor’s office so it will happen at my house. After your checkup you’ll whack off into a syringe bulb and I’ll inject it you know where.”

  “I have my dignity,” he had said, copping the line from one of Delmore’s Perry Mason reruns.

  “You’ll get over it.”

  “Why can’t I just put it in for a few minutes?”

  “The idea is repellent to me.”

  While she was in the motel office it occurred to him that he associated repellent with the insect repellent he smeared on himself, especially in June when blackflies and mosquitoes were active in the trillions when he was fishing.

  “You could drink a bunch and take one of your tranquilizers,” he suggested.

  “I’m a victim of anhedonia which means my neutrality is probably an organic response to trauma.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “I’ll explain it over dinner.”

  Their two rooms were adjoining but when B.D. opened his side he noted that hers was still locked.

  “Your door is locked.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  She took a quick shower and he got a hard-on just listening to the water run. He would have perished from lust if he hadn’t found a two-ounce shooter of Canadian whiskey at the bottom of his duffel.

  At dinner her soapy smell made his tummy quiver. So did his Seafood Medley for $9.95 for different reasons. It was all deep-fried and tasted like it had spent a lot of time on the bottom of a boat in the hot sun. Gretchen was kind enough to give him one of her two very tough pork chops though there was no gravy, just a slice of apple dyed red. She had ordered a bottle of white wine but he had never thought of white wine as actual alcohol so he opted for a couple of double whiskeys.

  “You could say that whiskey is my wine,” he said raising his glass and she clicked it with her own.

  “Apparently.”

  “I’ll pay for it,” he said drawing out a ten-spot.

  “Delmore gave me enough to bring you home. He’s getting sentimental. We met a number of times and even danced at the American Legion fish fry to a band called Marvin and His Polka Dots.”

  “It’s true if you say so.”

  “He even asked how women make love to each other and I said, ‘Mind your own beeswax,’ and then I told him I had given up sex for the rest of my life. He said he gave it up at age seventy because women kept borrowing money from him.”

  “I can’t believe you two being friendly.”

  “He has a motive. He’s eighty-eight years old and he’s worried about you and Berry. He’s not worried about Red who Cranbrook wrote him about and said was the best young math student they’ve ever had. Anyway as his nephew you’re his only close living relative. I had to tell Delmore that it’s unlikely that Berry has any memory of her brother.”

  “He never admitted I was his nephew.”

  “Well, you are and we agreed you need a short rope so I’ll likely end up as your guardian.”

  B.D.’s mind whirled and he signaled the waitress for a third whiskey. Most of everything was going over his head because he was not one to think of the future. Up until Berry had entered his life the future was limited to the next day at most. Nearly every day he cooked food when he was hungry and slept when he was tired.

  “You were going to tell me why sex is repellent.” B.D. could practically smell 6-12 and Muskol in the air though you had to be careful about getting it in your eyes or you couldn’t tie a fly on your leader.

  “I’m tired of being sunk in mental shit. I can’t talk about it now. Besides, you don’t look so physically repellent after three glasses of wine.” She leaned back, yawned, and stretched revealing her belly button, that sacred nubbin that connected her to a thousand generations before her.

  “I’m telling you that if you drink two bottles of wine you’d be on me like flies on a cow’s ass.” He knew his words weren’t quite right but the sight of her belly button was a jolt to his inner and outer beings.

  “You can do better than that.”

  “Like a monarch butterfly on a daisy.”

  “You’re a daisy!” She shrieked with laughter.

  “Like an old maid sitting on a warm cucumbe
r in her garden.”

  She leaned forward smirking and parted her blouse so he could see her left braless titty.

  “In high school I was known as Miss Prick Tease,” she laughed.

  B.D. felt he was bubbling inside as Gretchen walked toward the cash register. Her body mystified him as it was far too slender for his normal taste. She had told him she had taken dance classes for fifteen years to “burn off anger” and that likely accounted for her tight build. On the way back down the hall to their rooms she stumbled and he caught her. She gave him an almost hug at her door and he thought of breaking his plastic key so he could enter through her door but she grabbed it and opened the door for him when he fumbled.

  “We could have a nice glass of water for a nightcap,” he said through her adjoining door.

  “Sorry, kiddo. Right now I’m undressing. The squeaking sound you hear is my butt rubbing against the door.”

  “You can’t do that to me. I won’t sleep. I got a hard-on like a toothache.”

  “Just whack off. Get in practice as a sperm donor. Say your prayers. Think about your mom.”

  “I don’t have a mom.”

  “I’m sorry. I misspoke.”

  He lay down on the rug and squinted through the quarter-inch space under the door. He heard her lights turn off. Lucky for him that he had darted next door into a liquor store when they had stopped for gas in Chamberlain and she had gone to the toilet. He sipped at the first of three shooters staring up at the creamy void of the ceiling. He slept on the floor until five A.M. then rushed to the bed to get fair use of the room cost.

  Mum was the word in the morning except when he couldn’t work the coffee machine and called out to her.

  “Is this a rapist trick?” She rushed in wearing a short robe and while she got the machine going he leaned far over from his position at the end of the bed to get a peek up the back of her robe. His vision reached midway up her thighs so the effort was worth it except that she turned around and caught him.

  “You’re incorrigible.”